Editing Sam & Max (section)

===Creation===
The idea of ''Sam & Max'' originated with Steve Purcell's younger brother, Dave, who invented the concept of a comic about a detective team consisting of a dog and a rabbit in his youth. Dave often left the comics around the house, so Steve, in a case of [[sibling rivalry]], often finished the incomplete stories in parodies of their original form, deliberately making the characters mix up each other's names, over-explain things, shoot at each other and mock the way in which they had been drawn, as "kind of a parody of the way a kid talks when he's writing comics". Over time, this developed from Steve merely mocking his brother's work to him creating his own full stories with the characters. Ultimately, in the late 1970s, Dave Purcell gave Steve the rights to the characters, signing them over in a contract on Steve's birthday and allowing him to develop the characters in his own way.<ref name="early years 1">{{cite web |url=http://www.telltalegames.com/summerofsamandmax/history/history1 |title=Part 1: The Early Years |work=The History of Sam & Max |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080103224931/http://www.telltalegames.com/summerofsamandmax/history/history1 |archive-date=2008-01-03 |publisher=[[Telltale Games]] |date=2007-06-12 |access-date=2008-12-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite video |people=Steve Purcell |date=2008-03-11 |title=A COMIC-CONversation With Steve Purcell!!! |medium=DVD |publisher=[[Shout! Factory]]}}</ref> In 1980, Purcell began to produce ''Sam & Max'' comic strips for the weekly newsletter of the [[California College of the Arts|California College of Arts and Crafts]]. While the visual appearance of the characters had not yet been fully developed, the stories were similar in style to those that followed when Purcell was offered by ''[[Fish Police]]'' author Steven Moncuse the chance to publish his work properly in 1987.<ref name="early years 2"/>

[[File:Steve Purcell APE 2007.jpg|thumb|right|''Sam & Max'' was created by Steve Purcell, who took a significant role in developing the later video games.]]
Many aspects of the ''Sam & Max'' comics were influenced by Purcell's own experiences. [[Rat]]s and [[cockroach]]es are common throughout the franchise, the former inspired by Purcell's pet rat. In another example, Sam and Max are occasionally shown playing a game called "fizzball", in which the object of the exercise is to hit a can of [[beer]] in mid-air with a solid [[Axe|axe handle]]. Purcell had previously invented the game with his friends, including fellow comic book writers [[Art Adams]] and [[Mike Mignola]].<ref name="early years 2"/>